Roughly in the same years, Marianne Hirsch proposed the term “postmemory” to define the memorial condition of the offspring of Holocaust survivors; a concept eventually broadened into a cultural category, a structure that can accommodate both trans-/inter-generational and horizontal transmission of traumatic memories. Postmemory portrays this transfer as an overwhelming flow bursting the banks of direct witnessing, spilling over the spectators and turning them into vicarious witnesses. This contiguity between direct and indirect involvement, first generation and later ones, the event and its aftermath makes remembrance an endless practice. Memory is thus a process – rather than a result. It is mediated, negotiated, always redefined, interrupted and resumed; a journey scattered with stumbling moments. While its original formulation referred to the Holocaust, “postmemory”, by Hirsch’s own admission, can usefully be applied to the wider context of WWII.

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       The rise of the far right both in Europe and in the US precisely at a time in which the direct witnesses and survivors of the dramatic events of WWII (including the Holocaust, but not only) are dying out, makes the need for a strong memorialization—for a solid stone to stumble upon, as it were—as urgent today as ever. But, what kind of memory can the younger generations bring to the table? How does this second- or third-hand memorialization negotiate the inevitable mediation of “prosthetic memories,” to use Alison Landsberg’s term, to revive a historical past to which they have not been directly exposed to? What kind of immediacy can such memories bring about; can they indeed be felt as if actually experienced? In our use of the term, “postmemory” is imperfect in the sense that it is not stable and finite, but on the contrary it needs and stimulates a continuous renegotiation and recalibration. Such a past imperfect continuous is subject to continuous updates and modifications that reflect new sensibilities and/or cultural and political needs. In the last 20 years, scholars in memory studies have grappled with the same phenomenon, articulating it in different categories such as: “hypermemory” (Eva Hoffman), “multidirectional memory” (Michael Rothberg), “cultural memory” (Aleida Assman), and “prosthetic memory” (Alison Landsberg).

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       We are interested in examining innovative re-articulations/reformulations of the concept of “postmemory” that take into account trans-cultural and trans-medial transmissions of traumatic memories of WWII in Europe and the US.

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       Possible topics and areas include, but are not limited to, the following:

          –     Postmemory of WWII in comics and graphic novels,

          –     Postmemory of WWII in films and documentaries,

          –     Postmemorial museums and memorials,

          –     Postmemory of the Resistance,

          –     Postmemory and Forgetting,

          –     Postmemory and/as Vicarious Trauma,

          –     Landscapes of Holocaust postmemory,

          –     Postmodernism and postmemory,

          –     Memory immediacy and mediation,

          –     Gendered transmission of memory and (en)gendering postmemory,

          –     Meta reflection on postmemory as critical category,

          –     Private and intimate/familial/social/collective/political postmemory,

–     Ethics and politics of memory and of postmemory,

–     Postmemory as defining identity,

–     Affective and bodily dimensions of postmemory,

–     Emotional contagion, appropriation, and a-critical identification with victims

–     Postmemory, Memorialization and/in the Anthropocene

 

We welcome proposals for individual papers and full panels. Submissions should include a title, a 250 word abstract and a short bio and contact information. Full panel proposals should include a title and a 200 word rationale for the panel as a whole, plus a 250-word abstract, short bio and contact information for each contributor. Panels require three presenters and need to leave time for discussion (panels are 90 minutes long). We encourage international panels that include panelists with diverse affiliations, career experiences, disciplines and literary/cultural traditions. Although we welcome international and comparatist approaches, the conference will be conducted in English and Italian.

 

       Please submit proposals by February 28 2018 to postmemorysapienza@gmail.com  Accepted proposals will be notified by the end of March. Please direct any questions about the conference and the submission process to postmemorysapienza@gmail.com